Monday, March 9, 2015

L.S.G. - Rendezvous In Outer Space (2015 Update)

A do-over for the L.S.G. debut album? Eh, I don't think that's necessary. Technically, that review I wrote for TranceCritic a decade ago (!!) was my second go at Rendezvous In Outer Space, the first a blurb on Lord Discogs. Yeah, I was carrying a torch for the CD back in the day, hoping to get all the young trance fans hype to some proper, authentic, genuine, indisputable, legitimate, um, authoritative, uh... twenty-four carat...? Are you messing with me, Online Thesaurus?

Point being, I felt like a man on a mission in ye’ olde year of 2004, a strident, determined soul set upon the harsh environment of internet web forums filled with ‘noobs’. They were gonna’ learn some history, gosh darned it, understand that trance did not, in fact, begin with Tiësto’s In Search Of Sunrise or Armin’s A State Of Trance. Oliver Lieb is the don of this scene, sons and daughters, the Godfather, the King Kahuna, the Khan, the Czar, the Duke and Duchess, the potentate, the oligarch, the overlord, the, um, rex, uh... the ‘crowned head’? Dammit, Online Thesaurus, you suck sometimes, you really do.

Obviously, I was a fool in turning the L.S.G. discography into weapons for a trance jihad, even subtly hijacking a young, hopeful trance website for my own nefarious plans. I shouldn’t be forcing my interests and opinions down the ears, eyes, and throats of fresh fans of a genre because I feel their current heroes are pale imitations of the real deal. See, there I go again - believing my taste superior than theirs because I have better albums in my possession (you know it’s true!). I cannot deny it though: Rendezvous In Outer Space should be mandatory listening for anyone who fancies themselves a fan of the genre. Lieb helped lay down so much of the groundwork future producers would emulate, why deny the roots of a form of music one purports to love? I mean, any metal fan worth his rock-salt dutifully digests the works of Black Sabbath – L.S.G. deserves the same respect, yo’.

Okay, enough of that torch. For one thing, there’s nothing else to prove with this argument. Those who’ve stuck with trance in the ten years since eventually came around to ol’ Oliver’s music regardless. It’s kinda’ hard not to look to the past when the present kept turning to such crap, right? More than that though, I no longer see music as tools for crusades, quite content in enjoying it for my own reasons and sharing my thoughts with those who are willing to hear or read. Oh yeah, I’m totally turning into that old guy sitting on the park bench with Sennheiser headphones feeding the raving raccoons. What makes Rendezvous In Outer Space so peerless, they ask, and I tell them, I tell them I says, “Hear how Lieb uses percussion for maximum effect with minimal fuss? By g’ar, that’s some mighty fine trance beat craftsmanship there, the likes you don’t see any more, b’gosh.”